


I've Heard a Lot About You

by Kacka



Series: First Impressions and First Loves [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:30:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5867608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy adopts Wells into his friend group after he's spent one night too many brooding over his best friend in Bellamy's bar. When he finally gets to meet Clarke, she's not what he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Heard a Lot About You

Bellamy meets Wells first.

It’s purely coincidental. He’s seen this guy at the bar the past few nights, watched him nurse a single beer for hours, staring into it like it holds all the answers to life. He’s watched him leave alone, without having said a single word to anyone after he ordered his drink.

Bellamy has been a bartender long enough to know the signs of a breakup, and they’re all there. If he’d been trying to cure another kind of sorrow, he’d be surrounded by friends or said something, anything, to the women who have tried to hit on him. He hasn’t been drunk or disruptive, hasn’t been angry or needed to vent. He just seems sad.

And Bellamy has always had a thing about taking in strays.

That’s probably why the one night all the tables are taken and he’s forced to take the open seat at the bar, Bellamy decides to strike up conversation.

“What’s your story, man?” He asks, wiping down a glass. The guy looks up, innocent surprise on his face at being addressed. If Bellamy had to guess, he’d say this kid has never experienced heartbreak before.

“My story?” He repeats, unsure.

“The one you’ve been wallowing about here every night for the past week,” Bellamy says pointedly. “As a licensed bartender, I can tell you that you’re unlikely to surprise me and that, for whatever reason, spilling secrets to a total stranger often makes people feel better. Plus, it’s cheaper than therapy.”

The customer eyes Bellamy as if he’s really considering him.

“What’s your name?”

“Bellamy,” he replies, extending a hand.

“I’m Wells.” They shake. “There, we’re only partial strangers now.”

“Whatever you want to tell yourself.”

“You have a best friend?” Wells asks, sounding morose.

“We don’t have official bracelets or anything,” Bellamy says, amused. Most customers use him as a sounding board, not looking for reciprocal interaction. He’d like to be able to say every sob story is different, but he’d bet anything that Wells is in love with his best friend and she– or he– has just rejected him. “But I have a few buddies I like better than the other ones, yeah.”

“Any you’ve known your whole life?”

“Just my sister.”

“So maybe you’ll get this,” he hums. “I’m an only child. So is my best friend, so growing up we were like brother and sister. Her mom and my dad are on the board together at a company that monitors satellite communications. Her dad used to work in the engineering department every now and then, checking up on things, and a few months back he discovered a flaw in the design that was saving a lot of money but impacting the quality of the data.”

Bellamy frowns. This isn’t where he was expecting this to go at all.

“So?”

Wells sighs like the weight of the world is pressing down on his chest and he can’t quite fill his lungs with a normal breath.

“So, Clarke– my friend– overheard her dad telling her mom about the flaw. The company ended up destroying the incriminating reports and making it look like he’d known about it all along, had even signed off on it. Her parents ended up getting divorced and her dad had to take a job in China because he couldn’t get work here anymore.”

“That sucks,” Bellamy says, uncertain how Wells fits into this whole drama.

“Yeah. Now, the question is: who alerted the company that he was going to go public with the information?” He downs a huge swig. Bellamy waits him out. “Clarke had told me about the argument her parents had, and now she thinks I’m the one who told my dad.”

“Did you?”

“Of course not,” Wells says, with what Bellamy assumes is his meanest glare. It’s somewhat less than intimidating.

“So she blames you that her parents split and her father moved halfway across the world?”

“Score one for the bartender.”

“Bellamy.”

“Bellamy,” Wells agrees. “She won’t return any of my calls, won’t listen to my side of things, and she’s just gotten accepted to study abroad in Hong Kong this fall so that she can be close to him and she won’t have to be around me or her mom.”

“And she has no idea that you’re in love with her.”

“None whatsoever,” he says, drawing the words out sadly. “I’ve known for a long time that she doesn’t feel the same way. But score two for Bellamy.” He drains his glass, which is impressive since it was mostly full. Bellamy pours him a second before he even asks, and waves him away when he reaches for his wallet.

“Don’t worry about it. I'm actually surprised, so this one is on me.”

Wells gives him an awkward half-salute and starts in on his second beer.

Bellamy likes the kid, even if he is a little depressed right now. Miller says he has a complex about people who look like they need taking care of. Bellamy doesn’t think he’s a caretaker, really. He’s more of a motivator. It’s less about looking needy and more about Wells looking directionless that makes Bellamy feel like he has something to offer this near-stranger. But just to be sure, he asks, “How come you’re not on another friend’s couch, getting wasted off their alcohol and telling this saga to them?”

“I’ve never been great at making friends,” Wells admits. “Clarke and I went to this tiny private school growing up and basically hated everyone else in our class, and then when I got to college, she was just across town at another university. Me leaving to hang out at an Ivy instead of at our state school made them think I was kind of stuck up.” He wrinkles his nose at the thought.

“And now she’s ditching you for the semester.”

“She’s got a good reason.”

“Not really,” Bellamy says, fairly. “She thinks she has a good reason but you didn’t actually do anything wrong.”

“You could look at it that way.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “So what you’re saying is, you need a new friend group.”

“What, you got an opening?” Bellamy smiles at the dry, skeptical humor and thinks about how well he’d fit in.

“Something like that.”

He’s not sure Wells will actually come when he messages him on Facebook to invite him to the bar for trivia. Bellamy figures it’s more likely he’ll hang out by the bar and that they’ll have to send Octavia to retrieve him. Miller would make fun of him for doing it himself, and Octavia is pretty impossible to say no to. He’s tried and failed many times before.

In reality, Wells is the first one there and when Bellamy steers his sister and his roommate toward the booth where the clean-cut kid is already sitting, he straightens and gives them a nod.

“Wells, this is my sister Octavia and our friend Miller.”

“What’s up?” He says. Miller rolls his eyes at Bellamy but doesn’t comment, though Bellamy is sure he will later on. He takes their drink preferences and meanders over to where Monty is working the bar.

“We’re waiting for another couple of people,” Octavia explains.

“Wait no longer, the party has arrived,” Raven announces, sliding in almost on top of Octavia, who doesn’t seem to mind. She reaches across the girl to introduce herself to Wells while Murphy drags a chair over and sprawls in it. When Lincoln arrives about ten minutes later, Octavia makes Raven switch with her so she can twine her fingers with her boyfriend’s. Bellamy pretends not to notice.

They’re all pretty used to Bellamy bringing random people into the group. It doesn’t happen often, but they don’t ask for an explanation. Nobody asks why he’s there or makes him feel like an outsider. Wells even seems to relax once the trivia starts and it’s apparent that he and Raven are carrying the seventies rock category.

“We’re keeping him,” Octavia announces as they stroll to the parking lot.

“He’s like a homeless little puppy,” Raven agrees. She’s had quite a bit to drink, and Murphy is having to pull her away from trying to look under the hoods of cars that aren’t hers. “We have to give the puppy a home.”

“I don’t like him,” Murphy mutters, dodging Raven’s elbow when she tries to get him in the side.

“You don’t like anyone,” Lincoln points out. Octavia snickers even though Bellamy doesn’t think it was that funny.

Miller has stayed behind to help Monty close, but Bellamy sees later on that he has friended Wells on Facebook, and that seals the deal in his mind. Wells is one of them, now.

By the end of the semester, it’s hard for any of them to really remember how suddenly Wells showed up in their lives, how one day he hadn’t been a part of the friend group and the next day he just is .

It turns out Wells and Miller are both extremely passionate about hockey, which Bellamy hadn’t even known about his roommate, and they spend hours smack-talking each other’s teams and watching games together. Lincoln gives him a friends and family discount at the gym where he works, and even goes so far as to ask Wells if he’d be the first client for his personal training class. Raven and Wells spend most of their time arguing– or flirting? Bellamy can’t always tell– about Star Trek and the possibility of life on other planets. Wells can even keep up with all of her jargon because he’s grown up hearing it in his dad’s office. Octavia doesn’t bond with him over anything in particular, but she seems to like him as well as she likes any of the rest of them. Murphy continues to hate Wells, and Bellamy finds himself intervening on Wells’s behalf a lot.

“I’d tell you it’s not personal, but I don’t know,” Bellamy admits one night when Murphy has wandered off to play darts. Throwing sharp objects at a target isn’t Bellamy’s favorite of Murphy’s hobbies, but it’s probably better than his other favorite activity: starting a bar brawl.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Wells shrugs. “I don’t really like him either. I’m just a little worried sometimes that he’s going to jump me in the parking lot.”

“The odds of that are not as slim as I’d like for them to be.”

Wells doesn’t mention the mysterious best friend much. He and Raven have a long conversation about a lot of serious things one night and Bellamy is pretty sure she comes up in it, but as far as he knows Wells hasn’t heard from his friend since before she left for China.

To be perfectly honest, Bellamy is a little ticked off at her once he gets to know Wells. It’s clear to him that Wells isn’t the kind of person who would go behind a friend’s back, or tell a secret that wasn’t his. Even if he thought he would be doing it for the right reasons.

That’s why it’s such a surprise when Wells shows up just after New Years with a blonde in tow. Well, it’s one of multiple reasons he’s surprised.

“Griffin,” Raven says, her tone not dark, exactly, but a little more distant than she usually is.

“Raven,” the newcomer says, steady. She’s got one of those faces that looks perfectly composed, Bellamy thinks. Every movement seems intentional, every muscle completely under her control. If he wasn’t so determined to dislike her, he would think it’s really cool.

“Wait–” Wells says, looking between the two women. “How–?”

“Long story,” Raven cuts him off. “For a time when I’ve had more to drink.”

“Hear, hear,” the other girl says, giving her a small grin. The corners of Raven’s mouth twitch in response.

“You’re Clarke, then?” Bellamy says, and her eyes flash over to his. They’re blue and icy and it’s like a storm rolling in, sending shivers down his spine.

“You must be Bellamy,” she says, and it’s maddening that he can’t read her voice.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” he says. Octavia kicks him under the table for his unfriendly tone, and Clarke’s face doesn’t move but it suddenly feels like her glare has dropped about thirty degrees in temperature.

“I haven’t,” Octavia pipes in, introducing herself and the rest of the group. Clarke doesn’t look Bellamy’s way for most of the night, which gets under his skin for reasons he can’t quite put a finger on, but she’s soon laughing and chatting with the rest of them, telling them charming anecdotes about her cross-cultural experience. They accept her almost as easily as they accept Wells, simply adjusting to make more room among themselves for her. But there’s an undercurrent of tension as Bellamy stews in silence and when he gets up to get himself another drink, he’s surprised to find Wells sidling up beside him at the bar.

“Looks like you and Clarke patched things up.”

“I emailed her dad and asked him to tell her what really happened,” Wells says as Bellamy flags Monty down. “It seemed like a desperate last resort, but the whole she-can’t-ignore-me-over-the-holidays thing wasn’t working like I’d hoped. She came over right after she got off Skype with him. We both cried and watched terrible Hallmark Christmas movies and got caught up. Things are good now.”

“You just forgive her? Just like that.”

“She’s the grudge-holder, not me,” Wells says, half-smiling. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

Bellamy isn’t so sure, but he resolves to at least try to be a little friendlier to Clarke. Unfortunately, that lasts about all of fifteen minutes before she makes a comment about a cheating ex and he finally puts together how she and Raven must know each other.

“You were Finn’s other woman,” he accuses, his voice hard again. He’d only met Raven in the aftermath; she’d slept with him and then showed up the next night to get drunk at his bar, and he’d gotten Murphy and Miller to distract her so she didn’t end up keying someone’s car or something. Either way, he’d met two of his friends at some of their lowest points because of this girl. He’s never had a three strikes rule, but he figures it’s not too late to institute one.

“Not intentionally,” she says in a voice that would silence a lesser man. Or maybe just a less hostile man.

“You accidentally fell into his bed?” Bellamy sneers. This time it’s Raven who kicks him, and much harder than Octavia had.

“The second I found out about Raven, I cut it off,” Clarke sounds annoyed now. Bellamy can’t really blame her. He knows he’s being overprotective and belligerent, giving her every reason to hate his guts, but he doesn’t really mind.

“Should’ve cut something else off,” Raven interjects, before Bellamy can say anything else. He gets up and steps outside, hoping the fresh air will cool him off a bit. He’s expecting his sister, or maybe even Raven, to be the one who follows him this time, but instead he finds himself looking down at light skin and fair hair and a beauty mark in almost the same place he’s got a scar, just above his lip.

“What do you want, Princess?”

“Princess?” She frowns. He’s not quite sure where it came from. He knows her mom is on the board of some fancy company, knows she went to private school and now an Ivy League university, knows she carries herself regally, knows she hurt his friends.

“If the shoe fits, right? That’s how Cinderella’s story went.”

Her mouth settles into a hard line and he can feel his hackles raising for a fight.

“It’s obvious you’ve already made up your mind about me, but I really don’t care. I’m doing the best I can. I’ve screwed up and Wells and Raven have gotten hurt. So hate me all you want. I came out here to say thanks for taking him in. And thanks for being a better friend to him than I was.”

Bellamy is floored, not least at being caught off guard once again.

“What’s it like to be the bigger person?” He wonders, and for a second it looks like she wants to laugh.

“Honestly? It sucks.”

“Huh.” Bellamy says, still processing. “Maybe I’ll try it sometime.” They stand in silence and watch cars go by for a few minutes before he says, quiet, “It wasn’t just me who took him in.”

“I know. But he told me how it happened, and believe it or not, the whole group kind of takes their cues from you. Wells told me they’ve been a little bit weird tonight, and my theory is that it’s because you’re being an asshole to me.”

“They know I’m just an asshole, sometimes.” She shrugs and lets another silence fall. He wonders why she doesn’t just go back inside. He's not quite ready to let her off the hook, though, so he says, “He would have been fine without us, you know.”

“Maybe. But he would’ve been hard-pressed to find better friends.”

He looks down at her in surprise. She really is the bigger person. Suddenly the moniker of princess seems to apply in a new way. Bellamy isn’t sure he’ll be able to use it again as an insult, isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep a hint of respect out of it.

She looks back at him with a steady gaze, and he wonders how long it will take him to decipher her guarded expressions. He hopes she’ll stick around so he has time.

“Laying it on thick, huh?” He manages.

“Raven might have mentioned that the way to your heart is through your ego,” she smirks. “But I did mean it.”

After that, he’s markedly more civil to her. She and Raven get along surprisingly well for the history they share. Octavia is chilly toward her, but when Clarke and Lincoln bond over art it goes a long way to mending that fence. She and Wells don’t spend all their time making inside jokes, though they’ll exchange private smiles from time to time, and she handles Murphy much better than Wells. She takes her cues from Raven, and is soon giving him just as much shit as anyone else does. Bellamy finds himself having to intervene on Murphy’s behalf more often than not these days, and it’s a little unsettling for him. She also spends a lot of time at the bar talking to Monty, and sometimes his friend Jasper, who have never really been a part of the group despite Miller’s affection.

The group dynamic changes bit by bit, and Bellamy only has Clarke to blame.

First it’s that she starts coming with a small cluster of his friends– Wells, Monty, and Miller, or she and Octavia and Raven will have a girls night– while he’s tending bar and can’t hang out with them. He guesses it’s none of his business, but it feels a little like she's rubbing it in his face.

Then, it’s that she invites everyone, even Murphy, over to her apartment to watch Lost or play video games. Her apartment is big and nice and she lives there alone, which prompts Murphy to sneer at her and call her Princess all night. Every time he does, her eyes flicker over to Bellamy, almost as if she didn’t really mean to look at him. It’s probably true; she doesn’t look at him all that much, and they never say much to each other.

The strangest change of all is that the others all seem to grow closer and closer with Clarke while Bellamy hardly knows her.

“It’s your own fault,” Octavia says with an eye roll when he points this out. He and his sister have always invited their close friends over for their birthdays, which are only a week apart. Though they’ve known Clarke for a few months by now, when Octavia suggests inviting her Bellamy feels inclined to argue. “Besides, you’re just being standoffish because you didn’t get to approve her first. You were the same way with Lincoln. You weren’t the one who brought them into the group, and you’re being a baby about it.”

“That’s not true."

“Well, I’m inviting her, so get over it.”

Clarke is one of the first to arrive. She’s clutching some wrapped gifts and she looks nervous. She also looks beautiful, a small part of his mind nudges him to realize. She’s wearing a dress and her hair is falling in soft curls around her face. If he didn’t know her, he’d almost call her delicate. It’s probably that juxtaposition that throws him off and makes him forget how speaking works. Probably.

“You going to let me in?” She asks, smirking when he doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah, of course.” He stands aside so she can brush past him. She smells like perfume, something sweet. “You can stick those in Octavia’s room if you want,” he says, nodding to the presents.

“Sure. Just point me in the right direction.”

He leads her back and down the hall to O’s room, where she gently sets a few of the presents down on the bed. He watches her run her fingers over the framed pictures Octavia has on her desk, watches her read the spines of the few books Octavia has on her shelf.

“It’s a sad collection, isn’t it?”

She startles when he speaks, as if she wasn’t expecting him to still be standing in the doorway.

“It’s better than I expected,” Clarke says with a fond smile. “She doesn’t sit still very much. But you, I bet you’re a reader.”

He ducks his head, wondering how she can be so perceptive when he hardly knows anything about her.

“I knew it!” She says triumphantly. “Can I see your bookshelf?”

“In my room?”

“Unless you have more than one.” Her forehead wrinkles. “I wouldn’t put it past you. Besides, this is for you.” She waves another wrapped object in the air, and sure enough, it has his name on it.

“You got me a birthday gift?”

“That is standard operating procedure.”

Bellamy shakes his head. She never does what he expects.

“Should I open it now?”

“It’s your party,” she shrugs, but she looks uncomfortable. He wants to ask why, wants to figure out why she even got him a present when he’s basically been a non-inclusive asshole for the past few months, but more than anything else he wants to find out what she got a non-inclusive asshole for his birthday.

He unwraps it slowly, giving her ample time to make an excuse and escape if she feels too awkward about the situation, but she stays where she is, shifting her weight back and forth.

When it’s finally free from the paper, he sees that it’s a framed drawing, all warm colors in the soft glow of colored pencil. It’s got a nostalgic feel to it, and that’s before he even really looks at the subject.

Upon closer inspection, he sees that it’s a panorama of their group of friends at the bar. Wells, Jasper, and Raven are sitting in the booth, their caricatureish expressions making it clear that they’re debating something or other. Octavia is sitting on the other side of the booth, clearly amused as she watches the banter unfold. Lincoln sits next to her, staring down at her with literal heart eyes. Even Bellamy can’t deny that it’s pretty accurate.

Miller is sitting at the bar, beanie and all, chatting with Monty as he pours a drink. Further over, Bellamy and Murphy are standing in the corner, playing darts. Murphy is wearing a grumpy expression and his speech bubble is all punctuation marks, just like swearing in old-timey cartoons. Bellamy studies his own face for a long time. It’s impressively accurate, from the smirk he spent much of his preteen years perfecting, to the freckles on his face, to his favorite leather coat that’s ripped by the left-hand pocket.

It’s not a scene that stands out from his memory, but it’s entirely plausible. It’s familiar. It’s the best gift he’s maybe ever gotten. And yet…

“You didn’t draw yourself,” he points out, looking up at her. She’s playing with the ring on her right hand, spinning it around and around on her finger. Her eyes fall to her hands when he says this and he realizes that he could have first expressed how grateful he is, how talented he thinks she is, how sorry he is that he made her feel like she wasn’t wanted even in this drawing.

“I didn’t,” she says simply. She doesn’t have to say more. He gets it.

“This is amazing, Clarke. I didn’t know you could draw like this.”

She looks back up at him, as if she thinks he’s messing with her, and he just looks back. She’s apparently pretty good at reading him; he figures she’ll be able to see the sincerity in his expression. He even scoots over where he’s sitting on O’s bed as an invitation for her to sit next to him.

“I used to be into realism,” she says, leaving a good-sized gap between them on the bed. “Nature and details and precision. But when I was studying abroad, I was so lonely. I didn’t speak the language and I wasn’t talking to anyone from back home, so I just started drawing people. Strangers, mostly. Tourists walking around, my professors, whoever. But I didn’t know them, so doing realistic portraits felt too… personal, I guess.” She pauses, frowning as she thinks over her words. “You probably didn’t want to know all that. What I meant to say is, yeah, I like art.”

“Thank you. Really. For telling me that, and for the drawing. It would be better if you were in it, but it’s still one of the most heartfelt gifts I’ve ever gotten. We, uh– our friend group doesn’t really do sentimental well. I was expecting mostly alcohol.”

“Yeah, well. They have other strengths.”

Bellamy feels like he can’t express enough how awesome this gift is, but he also sees how awkward she’s still feeling about it, so he grasps for a change of subject.

“You want to come make fun of my literary taste?” He asks, with no preamble. She looks up at him and grins.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

They spend a good hour discussing and dissecting the other’s views on everything from Mary Shelley to Severus Snape to The Hobbit movie adaptations, and by the time they emerge into the living room, the party is in full swing.

“Finally,” Raven says, throwing an arm around Clarke’s shoulders. “We have a pool going over whether you were banging or not. Also, happy birthday. You’re an old man.”

“Touching,” he deadpans. “And just for that, I’m not telling you who gets to collect.”

“Not unless we get in on the pool,” Clarke amends. “I’ll go one way and he’ll go the other so we don’t give anything away, and then we can split the take.”

“You wouldn’t give it all to me for my birthday?” He says, clasping a hand over his chest in mock offense.

“No way,” she says with a smirk. “It was my mastermind idea. I’m keeping my share of the winnings, fair and square.”

Raven curses. “You two really are doing it,” she says, looking between the two of them in dismay. “I need to go find Wells so I can change my bet before he notices.”

“Do they really think the only way we can get along is if we’re sleeping together?” Clarke says under her breath to Bellamy, laughing softly as she watches Raven walk away. She’d stepped closer so he could hear her, which is a huge metaphorical step forward in their friendship. Something warm stirs in his chest at the thought.

“Stranger things have happened.”

Over the next month or so, things improve drastically between them. Instead of constantly avoiding the other, or being at each other’s throats, they start to team up against their friends. It turns out she’s a great partner for drinking games, ruthless and nearly impervious to the effects of alcohol, and they dominate the history category on trivia night. He thinks everything is fine, until Wells asks Raven on a date.

Objectively, it’s a good thing. Raven has a bad track record with guys and she seems to like Wells a lot, or at least likes flirting with him. But Bellamy can’t help himself. He remembers how dejected Wells looked that first night they met, how heartbroken he was over Clarke, and he worries. He wants to give Wells the benefit of the doubt, but the more he gets to know Clarke, the more he understands how easy it would be to fall for her.

“Tell me you’re not going to do the big brother talk for Raven ,” Clarke teases him as he steps behind the bar to make them a couple of drinks. Monty rolls his eyes but yields, knowing how particular Bellamy is about his ratios.

“I know she can handle herself. Does it sound too hokey to say I just want to make sure he has the right intentions in asking her out?”

“Yes,” Clarke says immediately, grinning when he glares at her. “Sorry, was I supposed to act like you’re not being overbearing? Because that counteracts my end goal.”

“I’m not that bad. I’m just genuinely concerned.”

“About Wells? What kind of bad intentions do you think he has?”

“Last I heard, he was into someone else,” Bellamy says carefully. He’s not sure if Clarke is aware of how Wells feels– felt– about her. “Raven shouldn’t be a rebound.”

“She’s not,” Clarke reassures him, her voice completely serious now. “They talked before I even got home from China. She knows how he used to feel about me, and she told him that if he ever got over it he should call her first.”

“And he’s over you?”

“He wouldn’t have asked her out if he wasn’t.” He mulls this over and she purses her lips. “Do you really think he would do that to Raven?” She asks eventually. “You know Wells. You know he’s a good guy.”

“I do. He’s a good guy, and I think he and Raven would be great together. But I also find it hard to believe that he can just get over you in a couple of months. It doesn’t seem like that should be possible for anyone, much less someone who has had a thing for you probably his whole life.”

Clarke opens her mouth and closes it again, frowning.

“I have some questions about your premise,” is what she finally comes up with.

“Ask away.”

She’s quiet for another minute, and then she says, “Do you want to get dinner with me sometime?”

He smiles reflexively but it takes his brain a minute to catch up. He hadn’t meant to be that transparent, but he forgets sometimes how well she sees him.

“I would love to.”

It turns out to be the best date he’s ever been on. She introduces him to an Indian restaurant (he’s been looking for a good one), they wander around a bookstore for a while, and they end the night making out on her couch. Mostly it’s good because he’s on a date with Clarke, and he's a lot further gone for her than he would’ve let himself admit before his birthday.

Clarke tells him on their third date that she’s gone in on a bet about whether or not the two of them are sleeping together. They’ve been keeping it quiet from their friends so far, making sure it’s as great as they think it is before they get everyone else invested in it. But she’s been to the bar to chat with him most nights since they started dating, and he keeps seeing things when he’s not with her that he can’t wait to tell her about, and it feels pretty real to him.

They end up splitting her winnings once again.

When Wells finds out that they’ve gotten together, Bellamy is worried he’ll be conflicted about the girl he used to love finding someone else. But of course, Wells is a better friend than Bellamy gives him credit for, and a better boyfriend to Raven, too. He appears to be nothing but happy for the two of them, though he does draw Bellamy aside shortly after everyone has found out and money has exchanged hands.

“Is this the part where you threaten to hurt me if I hurt her?” Bellamy asks, only half joking. “Because I have a little sister, so I’ve given it once or twice. I will probably critique your performance.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you give it to yourself, then,” Wells says, his voice dry. “And I’ll give it to her, too. You’re both my friends, and I don’t want to have to choose sides. Ever.” His eyes are laser-focused on Bellamy’s and he feels a surge of admiration for Wells.

“I’d never make you,” Bellamy promises. Wells gives him a clap on the back.

“Good. Next round is on me.”

The next time Bellamy’s birthday rolls around, Clarke makes him a new drawing. This time his caricatured self is missing the dartboard because a little cartoon version of her is kissing him on the cheek. Again, it’s not a memory from real life, but it’s totally believable.

And just like his real life, the drawing is better with her in it.


End file.
